Daily Archives: 3 July 2023

Sewage scandal goes to the High Court

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https://envirotecmagazine.com/2023/07/03/sewage-scandal-goes-to-the-high-court/

April 2023 Surfers Against Sewage and Extinction Rebellion protests in St Agnes, Perranporth, Truro and Charlestown which unveiled spoof Blue Plaques to the MPs and Conservative Government who allowed raw sewage to be dumped in the sea (Image: Surfers Against Sewage)
April 2023 Surfers Against Sewage and Extinction Rebellion protests in St Agnes, Perranporth, Truro and Charlestown which unveiled spoof Blue Plaques to the MPs and Conservative Government who allowed raw sewage to be dumped in the sea (Image: Surfers Against Sewage)

On Wednesday 5 to Thursday 6 July, the High Court will hear a legal challenge that aims to force the Government to toughen up its plan for reducing sewage dumped in England’s rivers and seas. Good Law Project is supporting the Marine Conservation Society, Richard Haward’s Oysters and surfer and activist Hugo Tagholm as they argue that the Government’s strategy is inadequate, allowing water companies to pollute waters and beaches for another 27 years.

England’s sewers were designed with 14,500 storm overflows to stop them becoming overwhelmed, allowing a mixture of surface water and sewage to be discharged during heavy rainfall. But according to the Environment Agency, these overflows are now used on a routine basis. Water companies discharged untreated sewage through storm overflows more than 300,000 times in 2022 for a total of 1.7 million hours.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) published the Storm Overflows Discharge Reduction Plan to tackle this in August last year. It imposed a deadline of 2035 for reducing the sewage flowing into bathing waters and areas of ecological importance, but gave companies until 2050 to stop discharges elsewhere.

This legal challenge, which has been backed by cross-party MPs, aims to force the Government to bring forward these deadlines and introduce tougher targets.

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https://envirotecmagazine.com/2023/07/03/sewage-scandal-goes-to-the-high-court/

Continue ReadingSewage scandal goes to the High Court

Top oil and gas companies have made “almost no progress” towards Paris Agreement goals: report 

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https://www.energymonitor.ai/sectors/industry/oil-and-gas-companies-behing-on-paris-deal/

The CDP’s Oil and Gas Benchmark report assessed 100 oil and gas companies on low-carbon transition and just transition indicators.

Top oil and gas companies have made “almost no progress” in reaching the climate goals agreed as part of the 2015 Paris climate summit, environmental disclosure non-profit CDP said on Thursday.  

The CDP’s Oil and Gas Benchmark report, published with the World Benchmarking Alliance (WBA), assessed 100 oil and gas companies. The assessment was based on low-carbon transition and social and just transition indicators.  

While none of the companies perform well on all indicators, Finland-based Neste is ranked first, followed by French company Engie, oil giant TotalEnergies, Spain’s Naturgy Energy and Italy’s Eni. In May this year, TotalEnergies announced its plan to keep its scope 3 emissions below 400 million tonnes. However, the company scored 19.4 out of 60 on CDP’s low-carbon transition indicator, and 9.4 out of 20 on just transition.  

According to the report, the operating emissions from the oil and gas sector added up to 5.1 gigatonnes (Gt) of CO₂ in 2022. None of the companies assessed by CDP can cut their emissions “at a rate sufficient to align with a 1.5°C pathway over the next five years”, it said. 

The report observes that most companies fail to disclose their capital investment in low-carbon technologies. Currently Neste is the only one with investments sufficient to meet the climate goals. Further, despite seven major oil companies disclosing a profit of $380bn in 2022, investments in low-carbon transition fall short significantly.  

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https://www.energymonitor.ai/sectors/industry/oil-and-gas-companies-behing-on-paris-deal/

Continue ReadingTop oil and gas companies have made “almost no progress” towards Paris Agreement goals: report 

Extinction Rebellion UK target Wood Group for “utter contempt” for UK taxpayers

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Extinction Rebellion UK protest at Wood Group Aberdeen 3 July 2023
Extinction Rebellion UK protest at Wood Group Aberdeen 3 July 2023

Extinction Rebellion are protesting the Wood Group’s Aberdeen and Staines offices after Wood Group significantly reduced it’s renewables operations and expanded it’s fossil fuel operations weeks after receiving a £430m government-backed “green transition loan” in 2021.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jun/07/scottish-firm-expands-oil-and-gas-business-after-green-transition-loan

… After receiving the £430m loan, Wood grew its upstream oil and gas business by 17% so that it accounted for more than $3bn (£2.4bn) in revenue in 2022, up from $2.6bn in 2021, according to an analysis of the company’s financial results by the Guardian and the investigative journalism organisation Point Source.

Over the same period the company reduced the size of its renewable, hydrogen, and carbon capture business units by 35% so that they only accounted for revenues of $222.8m in 2022, down from $344.6m in 2021.

The five-year loan, which was the first of its kind and was designed to help Wood transition away from fossil fuels, was announced in August 2021 by Liz Truss when she was international trade secretary.

At the time, Truss said the engineering company had “already made great strides in repositioning its business for a low-carbon future”.

After being awarded the loan, Wood announced a string of at least 20 major contract awards for work on oil, gas and petrochemical infrastructure.

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Continue ReadingExtinction Rebellion UK target Wood Group for “utter contempt” for UK taxpayers

AOC Calls Out ‘Dangerous Authoritarian Expansion of Power in the Supreme Court’

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Original article republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) speaks in front of the U.S. Capitol on July 28th, 2022. (Photo by Nathan Posner/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) speaks in front of the U.S. Capitol on July 28th, 2022. (Photo by Nathan Posner/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

‘There also must be impeachment on the table’

US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) on Sunday warned of an “authoritarian expansion of power” by the Supreme Court and demanded that lawmakers on Capitol Hill use all of their oversight authority to probe and stop the corruption inside the Supreme Court.

“The courts, if they were to proceed without any check on their power, without any balance on their power, then we will start to see an undemocratic and, frankly, dangerous authoritarian expansion of power in the Supreme Court,” Ocasio-Cortez said on CNN’s “State of the Union.’

“Which is what we are seeing now, from the overturning of abortion rights to the ruling that discrimination and, frankly, stripping the full personhood and dignity of LGBTQ people in the United States. … These are the types of rulings that signal a dangerous creep towards authoritarianism and centralization of power in the court,” the New York Democrat said.

CNN’s Dana Bash asked, “Are you saying that the justices’ power should somehow be limited?”

Ocasio-Cortez said, “I truly do. And this is not new; this is not a new development in history. This is part of our system of checks and balances. The courts, if they were to proceed without any check on their power, without any balance on their power, then we will start to see an undemocratic and frankly dangerous authoritarian expansion of power in the Supreme Court, which is what we are seeing now from overturning abortion to the ruling for discrimination and frankly stripping the full dignity and personhood of LGBTQ people in the United States.”

She added, “There also must be impeachment on the table. We have a broad level of tools to deal with misconduct, overreach, and abuse of power and the Supreme Court which has not been receiving the adequate oversight necessary in order to preserve their own legitimacy. And in the process, being themselves have been destroying the legitimacy of the court, which is profoundly dangerous for our entire democracy.”

Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez joins CNN’s Dana Bash to respond to the Supreme Court’s decisions on …

[Twitter refuses to embed]

Original article republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Continue ReadingAOC Calls Out ‘Dangerous Authoritarian Expansion of Power in the Supreme Court’

Millions of households’ face fuel poverty as government support scheme ends, warns charity

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https://leftfootforward.org/2023/07/millions-of-households-face-fuel-poverty-as-government-support-scheme-ends-warns-charity/

‘Without more support too many will continue to rack up unmanageable debts or try and survive in unheated homes causing ill health, misery, and avoidable death.’

Image of cash and pre-payment meter key
Image of cash and pre-payment meter key

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The National Energy Action (NAE), which works to provide support to those who cannot afford to heat their home, says around 6.6 million households across Britain will be in fuel poverty. The charity warns that despite cost-of-living payments for households on mean-tested benefits, vulnerable families will not receive any government support.

The charity cautions that households who aren’t on qualifying benefits – or aren’t on benefits at all – will miss out. This may include people who are severely in debt, those on low incomes who need to spend more energy at home due their disability or the inefficiency of their homes, unpaid carers, households on low incomes who have seen a drop in their incomes due to a recent bereavement, or households that, until this year, were eligible for wider assistance from programmes like the Warm Home Discount but are now no longer able to access energy rebates. 

Adam Scorer, chief executive of the NEA, warns that despite retail prices falling from July, many of the people the charity helps are still struggling. Scorer notes how two-thirds of households across Britain will no longer benefit from any assistance to offset the impacts of the energy crisis and Ofgem’s price cap will offer ‘limited protection to these households.’

“Millions of vulnerable people miss out on cost-of-living payments as they aren’t on the right benefits or no benefits at all. These people need additional help but are being left to manage bills that are still on average over £1,000 per year more expensive compared to the start of the crisis,” said Scorer.

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https://leftfootforward.org/2023/07/millions-of-households-face-fuel-poverty-as-government-support-scheme-ends-warns-charity/

Continue ReadingMillions of households’ face fuel poverty as government support scheme ends, warns charity